Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “How,” he asked, “are we to arouse her curiosity?”

  “By pretending that we have knowledge of something hitherto undiscovered, the discovery of which would redound to our scientific glory.”

  “I see. She’d want the glory for herself. She’d swipe it.”

  “She would,” said I.

  “Tee — hee!” he giggled; “Wouldn’t it be funny to plant something phony on her—”

  I waved my arms rather gracefully in my excitement:

  “That is the germ of an idea!” I said. “If we could plant something — something — far away from here — very far away — if we could bury something — like the Cardiff Giant—”

  “Hundreds and hundreds of miles away!”

  “Thousands!” I insisted, enthusiastically.

  “Tee-hee! In Tasmania, for example! Maybe a Tasmanian Devil might acquire her!”

  “There exists a gnat,” said I, “in Borneo — Gnatus soporificus — and when this tiny gnat stings people they never entirely wake up. It’s really rather a pleasurable catastrophe, I understand. Life becomes one endless cat-nap — one delightful siesta, with intervals for light nourishment.... She — ah — could sit very comfortably in some pleasant retreat and rock in a rocking-chair and doze quite happily through the years to come.... And from your description of her I should say that the Soldiers’ Home might receive her.”

  “It won’t do,” he said, gloomily.

  “Why? Is it too much like crime?”

  “Oh not at all. Only if she went to Borneo she’d be sure to take a mosquito-bar with her.”

  In the depressed silence which ensued Dr. Fooss suddenly made several Futurist observations through his nose with monotonous but authoritative regularity. I tried to catch his meaning and his eye. The one remained cryptic, the other shut.

  Lezard sat thinking very hard. And as I fidgetted in my chair, fiddling nervously with various objects lying on my desk I chanced to pick up a letter from the pile of still unopened mail at my elbow.

  Still pondering on Professor Bottomly’s proposed destruction, I turned the letter over idly and my preoccupied gaze rested on the postmark. After a moment I leaned forward and examined it more attentively. The letter directed to me was postmarked Fort Carcajou, Cook’s Peninsula, Baffin Land; and now I recalled the handwriting, having already seen it three or four times within the last month or so.

  “Lezard,” I said, “that lunatic trapper from Baffin Land has written to me again. What do you suppose is the matter with him? Is he just plain crazy or does he think he can be funny with me?”

  Lezard gazed at me absently. Then, all at once a gleam of savage interest lighted his somewhat solemn features.

  “Read the letter to me,” he said, with an evil smile which instantly animated my own latent imagination. And immediately it occurred to me that perhaps, in the humble letter from the wilds of Baffin Land, which I was now opening with eager and unsteady fingers, might lie concealed the professional undoing of Professor Jane Bottomly, and the only hope of my own ultimate and scientific salvation.

  The room became hideously still as I unfolded the pencil-scrawled sheets of cheap, ruled letter paper.

  Dr. Fooss opened his eyes, looked at me, made porcine sounds indicative of personal well-being, relighted his pipe, and disposed himself to listen. But just as I was about to begin, Lezard suddenly laid his forefinger across his lips conjuring us to densest silence.

  For a moment or two I heard nothing except the buzzing of flies. Then I stole a startled glance at my door. It was opening slowly, almost imperceptibly.

  But it did not open very far — just a crack remained. Then, listening with all our might, we heard the cautiously suppressed breathing of somebody in the hallway just outside of my door.

  Lezard turned and cast at me a glance of horrified intelligence. In dumb pantomime he outlined in the air, with one hand, the large and feminine amplification of his own person, conveying to us the certainty of his suspicions concerning the unseen eavesdropper.

  We nodded. We understood perfectly that she was out there prepared to listen to every word we uttered.

  A flicker of ferocious joy disturbed Lezard’s otherwise innocuous features; he winked horribly at Dr. Fooss and at me, and uttered a faint click with his teeth and tongue like the snap of a closing trap.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, in the guarded yet excited voice of a man who is confident of not being overheard, “the matter under discussion admits of only one interpretation: a discovery — perhaps the most vitally important discovery of all the centuries — is imminent.

  “Secrecy is imperative; the scientific glory is to be shared by us alone, and there is enough of glory to go around.

  “Mr. Chairman, I move that epoch-making letter be read aloud!”

  “I second dot motion!” said Dr. Fooss, winking so violently at me that his glasses wabbled.

  “Gentlemen,” said I, “it has been moved and seconded that this epoch-making letter be read aloud. All those in favor will kindly say ‘aye.’”

  “Aye! Aye!” they exclaimed, fairly wriggling in their furtive joy.

  “The contrary-minded will kindly emit the usual negation,” I went on.... “It seems to be carried.... It is carried. The chairman will proceed to the reading of the epoch-making letter.”

  I quietly lighted a five-cent cigar, unfolded the letter and read aloud:

  “Joneses Shack,

  Golden Glacier, Cook’s Peninsula, Baffin Land,

  March 15, 1915.

  “Professor, Dear Sir:

  “I already wrote you three times no answer having been rec’d perhaps you think I’m kiddin’ you’re a dam’ liar I ain’t.

  “Hoping to tempt you to come I will hereby tell you more’n I told you in my other letters, the terminal moraine of this here Golden Glacier finishes into a marsh, nothing to see for miles excep’ frozen tussock and mud and all flat as hell for fifty miles which is where I am trappin’ it for mink and otter and now ready to go back to Fort Carcajou. i told you what I seen stickin’ in under this here marsh, where anything sticks out the wolves have eat it, but most of them there ellerphants is in under the ice and mud too far for the wolves to git ‘em.

  “i ain’t kiddin’ you, there is a whole herd of furry ellerphants in the marsh like as they were stuck there and all lay down and was drownded like. Some has tusks and some hasn’t. Two ellerphants stuck out of the ice, I eat onto one, the meat was good and sweet and joosy, the damn wolves eat it up that night, I had cut stakes and rost for three months though and am eating off it yet.

  “Thinking as how ellerphants and all like that is your graft, I being a keeper in the Mouse House once in the Bronx and seein’ you nosin’ around like you was full of scientific thinks, it comes to me to write you and put you next.

  “If you say so I’ll wait here and help you with them ellerphants. Livin’ wages is all I ask also eleven thousand dollars for tippin’ you wise. I won’t tell nobody till I hear from you. I’m hones’ you can trus’ me. Write me to Fort Carcajou if you mean bizness. So no more respectfully,

  James Skaw.”

  When I finished reading I cautiously glanced at the door, and, finding it still on the crack, turned and smiled subtly upon Lezard and Fooss.

  In their slowly spreading grins I saw they agreed with me that somebody, signing himself James Skaw, was still trying to hoax the Great Zoölogical Society of Bronx Park.

  “Gentlemen,” I said aloud, injecting innocent enthusiasm into my voice, “this secret expedition to Baffin Land which we three are about to organise is destined to be without doubt the most scientifically prolific field expedition ever organised by man.

  “Imagine an entire herd of mammoths preserved in mud and ice through all these thousands of years!

  “Gentlemen, no discovery ever made has even remotely approached in importance the discovery made by this simple, illiterate trapper, James Skaw.”

  “I thought,” protested Lezard,
“that we are to be announced as the discoverers.”

  “We are,” said I, “the discoverers of James Skaw, which makes us technically the finders of the ice-preserved herd of mammoths — technically, you understand. A few thousand dollars,” I added, carelessly, “ought to satiate James Skaw.”

  “We could name dot glacier after him,” suggested Dr. Fooss.

  “Certainly — the Skaw Glacier. That ought to be enough glory for him. It ought to satisfy him and prevent any indiscreet remarks,” nodded Lezard.

  “Gentlemen,” said I, “there is only one detail that really troubles me. Ought we to notify our honoured and respected Chief of Division concerning this discovery?”

  “Do you mean, should we tell that accomplished and fascinating lady, Professor Bottomly, about this herd of mammoths?” I asked in a loud, clear voice. And immediately answered my own question: “No,” I said, “no, dear friends. Professor Bottomly already has too much responsibility weighing upon her distinguished mind. No, dear brothers in science, we should steal away unobserved as though setting out upon an ordinary field expedition. And when we return with fresh and immortal laurels such as no man before has ever worn, no doubt that our generous-minded Chief of Division will weave for us further wreaths to crown our brows — the priceless garlands of professional approval!” And I made a horrible face at my co-conspirators.

  Before I finished Lezard had taken his own face in his hands for the purpose of stifling raucous and untimely mirth. As for Dr. Fooss, his small, porcine eyes snapped and twinkled madly behind his spectacles, but he seemed rather inclined to approve my flowers of rhetoric.

  “Ja,” said he, “so iss it besser oursellufs dot gefrozenss herd von elephanten to discover, und, by and by, die elephanten bei der Pronx Bark home yet again once more to bring. We shall therefore much praise thereby bekommen. Ach wass!”

  “Gentlemen,” said I, distinctly, “it is decided, then, that we shall say nothing concerning the true object of this expedition to Professor Bottomly.”

  Lezard and Fooss nodded assent. Then, in the silence, we all strained our ears to listen. And presently we detected the scarcely heard sound of cautiously retreating footsteps down the corridor.

  When it was safe to do so I arose and closed my door.

  “I think,” said I, with a sort of infernal cheerfulness in my tones, “that we are about to do something jocose to Jane Bottomly.”

  “A few,” said Professor Lezard. He rose and silently executed a complicated ballet-step.

  “I shall laff,” said Dr. Fooss, earnestly, “und I shall laff, und I shall laff — ach Gott how I shall laff my pally head off!”

  I folded my arms and turned romanesquely toward the direction in which Professor Bottomly had retreated.

  “Viper!” I said. “The Bronx shall nourish you in its bosom no more! Fade away, Ophidian!”

  The sentiment was applauded by all. There chanced to be in my desk a bottle marked: “That’s all!” On the label somebody had written: “Do it now!” We did.

  III

  It was given out at the Bronx that our field expedition to Baffin Land was to be undertaken solely for the purpose of bringing back living specimens of the five-spotted Arctic woodcock — Philohela quinquemaculata — in order to add to our onomatology and our glossary of onomatopoeia an ontogenesis of this important but hitherto unstudied sub-species.

  I trust I make myself clear. Scientific statements should be as clear as the Spuyten Duyvil. Sola in stagno salus!

  But two things immediately occurred which worried us; Professor Bottomly sent us official notification that she approved our expedition to Baffin Land, designated the steamer we were to take, and enclosed tickets. That scared us. Then to add to our perplexity Professor Bottomly disappeared, leaving Dr. Daisy Delmour in charge of her department during what she announced might be “a somewhat prolonged absence on business.”

  And during the four feverish weeks of our pretended preparations for Baffin Land not one word did we hear from Jane Bottomly, which caused us painful inquietude as the hour approached for our departure.

  Was this formidable woman actually intending to let us depart alone for the Golden Glacier? Was she too lazy to rob us of the secretly contemplated glory which we had pretended awaited us?

  We had been so absolutely convinced that she would forbid our expedition, pack us off elsewhere, and take charge herself of an exploring party to Baffin Land, that, as the time for our leaving drew near we became first uneasy, and then really alarmed.

  It would be a dreadful jest on us if she made us swallow our own concoction; if she revealed to our colleagues our pretended knowledge of the Golden Glacier and James Skaw and the supposedly ice-imbedded herd of mammoths, and then publicly forced us to investigate this hoax.

  More horrible still would it be if she informed the newspapers and gave them a hint to make merry over the three wise men of the Bronx who went to Baffin Land in a boat.

  “What do you suppose that devious and secretive female is up to?” inquired Lezard who, within the last few days, had grown thin with worry. “Is it possible that she is sufficiently degraded to suspect us of trying to put one over on her? Is that what she is now doing to us?”

  “Terminus est — it is the limit!” said I.

  He turned a morbid eye upon me. “She is making a monkey of us. That’s what!”

  “Suspendenda omnia naso,” I nodded; “tarde sed tute. When I think aloud in Latin it means that I am deeply troubled. Suum quemque scelus agitat. Do you get me, Professor? I’m sorry I attempted to be sportive with this terrible woman. The curse of my scientific career has been periodical excesses of frivolity. See where this frolicsome impulse has landed me! — super abyssum ambulans. Trahit sua quemque voluptas; transeat in exemplum! She means to let us go to our destruction on this mammoth frappé affair.”

  But Dr. Fooss was optimistic:

  “I tink she iss alretty herselluf by dot Baffin Land ge-gone,” he said. “I tink she has der bait ge-swallowed. Ve vait; ve see; und so iss it ve know.”

  “But why hasn’t she stopped our preparations?” I demanded. “If she wants all the glory herself why does she permit us to incur this expense in getting ready?”

  “No mans can to know der vorkings of der mental brocess by a Frauenzimmer,” said Dr. Fooss, wagging his head.

  The suspense became nerve-racking; we were obliged to pack our camping kits; and it began to look as though we would have either to sail the next morning or to resign from the Bronx Park Zoölogical Society, because all the evening papers had the story in big type — the details and objects of the expedition, the discovery of the herd of mammoths in cold storage, the prompt organization of an expedition to secure this unparalleled deposit of prehistoric mammalia — everything was there staring at us in violent print, excepting only the name of the discoverer and the names of those composing the field expedition.

  “She means to betray us after we have sailed,” said Lezard, greatly depressed. “We might just as well resign now before this hoax explodes and bespatters us. We can take our chances in vaudeville or as lecturing professors with the movies.”

  I thought so, too, in point of fact we all had gathered in my study to write out our resignations, when there came a knock at the door and Dr. Daisy Delmour walked in.

  Oddly enough I had not before met Dr. Delmour personally; only formal written communications had hitherto passed between us. My idea of her had doubtless been inspired by the physical and intellectual aberrations of her chief; I naturally supposed her to be either impossible and corporeally redundant, or intellectually and otherwise as weazened as last year’s Li-che nut.

  I was criminally mistaken. And why Lezard, who knew her, had never set me right I could not then understand. I comprehended later.

  For the feminine assistant of Professor Jane Bottomly, who sauntered into my study and announced herself, had the features of Athene, the smile of Aphrodite, and the figure of Psyche. I believe I do not exag
gerate these scientific details, although it has been said of me that any pretty girl distorts my vision and my intellectual balance to the detriment of my calmer reason and my differentiating ability.

  “Gentlemen,” said Dr. Delmour, while we stood in a respectful semi-circle before her, modestly conscious of our worth, our toes turned out, and each man’s features wreathed with that politely unnatural smirk which masculine features assume when confronted by feminine beauty. “Gentlemen, on the eve of your proposed departure for Baffin Land in quest of living specimens of the five-spotted Philohela quinquemaculata, I have been instructed by Professor Bottomly to announce to you a great good fortune for her, for you, for the Bronx, for America, for the entire civilized world.

  “It has come to Professor Bottomly’s knowledge, recently I believe, that an entire herd of mammoths lie encased in the mud and ice of the vast flat marshes which lie south of the terminal moraine of the Golden Glacier in that part of Baffin Land known as Dr. Cook’s Peninsula.

  “The credit of this epoch-making discovery is Professor Bottomly’s entirely. How it happened, she did not inform me. One month ago today she sailed in great haste for Baffin Land. At this very hour she is doubtless standing all alone upon the frozen surface of that wondrous marsh, contemplating with reverence and awe and similar holy emotions the fruits of her own unsurpassed discovery!”

  Dr. Delmour’s lovely features became delicately suffused and transfigured as she spoke; her exquisite voice thrilled with generous emotion; she clasped her snowy hands and gazed, enraptured, at the picture of Dr. Bottomly which her mind was so charmingly evoking.

  “Perhaps,” she whispered, “perhaps at this very instant, in the midst of that vast and flat and solemn desolation the only protuberance visible for miles and miles is Professor Bottomly. Perhaps the pallid Arctic sun is setting behind the majestic figure of Professor Bottomly, radiating a blinding glory to the zenith, illuminating the crowning act of her career with its unearthly aura!”

  She gazed at us out of dimmed and violet eyes.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “I am ordered to take command of this expedition of yours; I am ordered to sail with you tomorrow morning on the Labrador and Baffin Line steamer Dr. Cook.